Felipe P.G. Neves

Felipe is a visiting scholar in Dr. Riley’s lab. His work is focused on determining the impact of routine vaccination against S. pneumoniae on pneumococcal carriage isolates that are circulating in children attending private and public clinics in Niterói/RJ, Brazil.

The project could provide highly relevant information, such as serotype replacement and changes in the composition of the clonal population over time after comparisons with vaccination data prior to when it became routine. More specifically, the project intends to determine whether genetic events that lead to capsular switching occurred, or if there are specific markers that can be used to assess biological fitness of clones. These results would be directly relevant to vaccine policies currently in effect.